Spot platinum on Wednesday afternoon surged to a fresh 25-and-a-half-year high of $990 a troy ounce on continued forceful fund-buying of the metal by the funds as well as Tuesday’s bullishly construed platinum group-metal review released by Johnson Matthey.
At 5.50pm, platinum was quoted at $990/oz, up $20,50/oz from the metal’s previous close.
“The move to $990/oz is really a continuation of what we have seen of the past few days with fund-buying coming out of Japan this morning and then this afternoon out of New York,” said United Kingdom-based analyst for TheBullionDesk.com James Moore.
“Investment funds continue to bid up the market. The Johnson Matthey report on Tuesday after showed that the platinum market remains fundamentally sound. In the next couple of days, platinum is likely to break $1 000/oz,” he added.
Platinum is mainly used to make auto catalysts and jewellery.
With fund interest in precious metals still high, Johnson Matthey on Tuesday predicted that the price of platinum could reach $1 030 during the next six months.
The all-time high for platinum of $1 040/oz was achieved in 1980.
It is unlikely that platinum will fall below $890 unless demand from jewellery manufacturers contracts more substantially than current trends suggest, Johnson Matthey added.
Johnson Matthey is forecasting that the global platinum market will be in deficit in 2005 for the seventh year in a row. — I-Net Bridge